They will not be free riders who just fiddle and suffice with what is given. No, when need be, each and every one of them will be sure to strike water from the hardest stones as Moses did and split rampant waters to lead the way.

They will know to wait when they need to wait, and they will know to act when they need to act. At times, they will come down on the earth like lightning. Yet, at other times, they will know to avoid violent storms and wait for the season of clear breezes. They are quick and bold, but their actions do not lack thought. Their minds are enlightened, their decisions exact, and their conduct measured.

They see no harm in relating to any idea or school of thought. But the direction of their hearts is immutably fixed on their own foundation of faith. For them, even the most lustrous movements of thought are not worthy of concern if they ultimately fail to relate to their faith. That is, they will not struggle to reclaim rivers that will not water their lands or feed their lakes.

Their power is derived from the truth and it is the truth for which they endeavor. However, they know that power is not without aim or place, and they know to be prudent when they cannot match the power of their adversaries. Shallow in appearance, they are smart and wise.

They are candid and sincere with friends. Their insight warmly accommodates their foes. In their world, heart and reason go hand in hand; friends are not ignored and foes are not cast away by vitriol.

Their anger never extends to cruelty. Yet, their leniency does not tolerate injustice. Their blessed atmosphere is free of the wantonness of the cruel and the wailings of the downtrodden.

They have resolve and determination. Neither worldly concerns, nor the desire for Paradise can entrap them until the day of true festivity. They incessantly exude the unparalleled incense of the transcendence.

They serve as a spiral cord between their communities and the truths of the realms beyond the heavens. This cord will never break, even though malevolent hands try to tear it apart, time and again. They are neither scared of the flames nor intimidated by the cannons of tyranny, because they have often countered infernos and crushing blows.

For them, true liberty lies in connection to the Divine Truth. Therefore, every exertion of the carnal self on the path of the Divine engenders an exhilaration of worship and infuses the faithful with interminable joy. This is particularly true when the soul is way beyond the primal human wants and pleasures, nestled in the safe haven of the heart …

Those who will shape tomorrow are always in confrontation with the carnal self. They are so composed that they will not be deceived into the positions granted by the good will of other people. They are never spoilt by their own achievements, grand as those achievements may be, or by the respectful ranks others ascribe to them. When the time comes that their names are heard everywhere and their reputation knows no limit, they will remain the same modest and unpretentious individuals they were when they first assumed the sacred duty. This modesty and this unpretentiousness will be embroidered with nobility and dignity.

They will never become beggars who seek reciprocation in return for the deeds they perform for the sake of their people. For them, beggary is to be abhorred, even if they are in utter need. For begging would mean doing what they despise most – receiving double of what they gave to their people.

Once again, we beseech the help of an elevated generation whose approach is imminent on the horizon. We pray, knowing that the Merciful God will not disappoint us.

There have always been people who have sought, in their own way, to actually become Gods equal. Today, this usually does not take the crude form of actually being worshipped as deities, devising specific rituals, and promulgating new doctrines and paths of salvation. This desire has become far more subtle, for it sometimes assumes the form of trying to help people. In this issue, we mention two groups of people who are tempted by this path: scientists and self-help experts.

For many, science has made life far easier and more comfortable than it was for our grandparents. We are healthier, better fed, better educated, and now take for granted many things that our grandparents grew up without. But some scientists continue to dream of actually creating new life. All of us know about the debates raging over such issues as cloning animals and humans, genetic engineering of food and animals, choosing a babys sex, and so on.

But what many of us do not know about, unless we are familiar with science fiction books and movies, is the relatively new field of nanotechnology. This involves the development of microscopic robots that can be inserted into your body to heal it by repairing its diseased parts, or maybe even those that are simply aging in accord with nature, so that life will continue perhaps indefinitely.

In the self-help field, many self-proclaimed experts repackage common sense and ideas from various Far Eastern non-monotheistic religious and philosophical systems and present them as breakthroughs that will enable you to realize your deepest desires. Underlying all of these, however, is the assumption that the individual is in control of his or her life. But is this really the case? Can we control every situation in our lives that has a role in our achievements?

We might be able to control some aspects, such as acquiring the necessary knowledge, skills, and contacts. But what about the other factors: the air and food necessary for life, the proper functioning of our brains and bodies, not to mention the continued beating of our hearts? Do we control these factors? The self-help experts never mention such facts, thereby encouraging us to take them for granted and deny any role in them to our Creator. And so we drift farther and farther away from our Creator and toward our own ego, thereby, perhaps unconsciously, joining the Pharaohs in their mistaken belief that they controlled everything.

For those of us who try to follow the path of Prophethood, as exemplified by Prophet Muhammad, such subtle attitudes must be recognized for what they are. While scientists and self-help experts have achieved remarkable things, we must not forget who made their achievements possible. Could it have been anyone other than God, Who gave them life, a brain with which to think, a desire to acquire knowledge and skills in order to benefit others, and everything else that enabled them to live long enough to be of service to others? We may appreciate their accomplishments, but our devotion and gratitude should be directed only to God, for without God they would not have accomplished anything.

The Conference was held in the Wembley Grand Hall on Saturday, 29th April, 1995, from 9 in the morning to 7 in the evening. The occasion was formally opened by Dr A. F. Yusuf, who expressed the hope that the Conference would be a means (notably for the media) to see and hear about Islam in another context than that of violent struggle for political and cultural identity; and that it would demonstrate the possibility and scope that exist for mutual respect and tolerance between people of different intellectual and cultural traditions.

Throughout the day the Hall was more or less full. In all, some 3000 people, excluding speakers, organizers and press, attended. Among the audience were non-Muslims as well as Muslims, and many women as well as many men, both young and old. All the different colours of the human race were there, African, Asian and European. Several people remarked that the scene reminded them, agreeably, of the hajj which, among much else, celebrates the world-wide diversity and community that is Islam.

The aim of the Report is to inform those who could not be present.

It is not a transcript of the proceedings. An edited video recording of the Conference is being made available.

A number of points emerged from the papers read at the Conference and the discussion about them:

1. The pervasiveness of Western norms and values in the modern world has meant that it is very difficult to imagine a constructive engagement between science and religion.

2. The old physics led to a deterministic and reductive worldview. The new physics embraces uncertainty, even unknowability as a structural feature of reality, bat it too has metaphysical pretensions and claims, that there is no reality outside human constructions/observations of it.

3. The effort to establish the terms of such an engagement can succeed in a broadly Islamic context because the Qur’an (a) presents the universe to man as the intelligible, harmonious creation of One Merciful, Omnipotent and Transcendent God: (b) encourages observation and study and the use of reason as a mode of worship: and (c) contains many true and accurate statements about natural phenomena and their operative relationships, and no untrue statements.

4. The concept of knowledge in Islam links it to the concept of wisdom. The aim of science is understanding and explaining the attributes of God insofar as these are reflected in nature. Its aim is not to obtain power or leverage over the operative mechanisms in nature. The Muslim scientist therefore aims to be a worshipper, as well as an expert.

5. The achievements of Muslims in laying the foundations of many modern scientific disciplines, most particularly in their use of observation and experimental method, should encourage the conviction that being a good Muslim is compatible with being a good scientist.

6. The failure to acknowledge, in the past, the contributions of Muslims to modern science is probably owed to the European scientists’ belief that the hostility they faced from the Church would have been even worse if their work were associated with Islam. Despite recent specialist studies which correct this neglect, ignorance about the achievements of Islamic science is general. This general ignorance effectively blocks discussion of a possible pattern of relationship between scientific inquiry and religious commitment on the Islamic model.

7. For the immediate future, scientific research will no doubt continue with its present assumption of the irrelevance of religion. This is inevitable given that the physical instruments as well as the intellectual concepts applied in the pursuit of scientific knowledge are Western. The structures of education and training, and subsequent career opportunities, are modelled on the Western pattern of very narrowly specialized expertise, with little opportunity for inter-specialist work even among researchers within the same discipline, let alone inter-disciplinary co-operation or cooperation between scientists and religious scholars. The mutual incomprehensibility of specialist dialects used by experts makes the situation even less susceptible of change.

8. The hurdles in the way of change are forbidding but not impossible. The old Islamic idea of a university as the gathering-place of different branches of knowledge will remain, for a while yet, just a cherished hope. But if it is sincerely cherished, specialists trained in the Western disciplines will work harder in their spare hours at qualifying themselves as Islamic scholars. Gradually, the definition of procedures and purposes in their field will evolve, through their own character as informed, practising Muslims, to give an Islamic shape to their specialist work. To begin with, only minor additions and modifications of existing curricula (both in schools and universities) will be possible.

9. To establish a truly Islamic curriculum in the sciences, but one that is practical from the point of view of training Muslims to be effective in the real world in which they find themselves, can only be a long- term goal. The first step towards that goal must be to provide Muslims with the relevant information and the means to exchange thoughts about it. Therefore:

a. We need case studies of past Islamic achievements which focus on the methods used, not the results. This will involve analyzing particular projects and comparing them with similar projects outside the Islamic tradition. Such studies need not be limited to comparing individual physics and chemistry experiments. They should also include skills and techniques applied in many areas, from town-planning and water management to lexicography and textual analysis. Any publisher(s) willing to undertake the task would need to plan a consistent series format aimed at the general reader.

b. We need an accessible account of how Muslim scholars and scientists maintained contact with each other, and how their work was funded and supported.

c. We need The Fountain or a magazine like it, preferably one that publishes monthly, to reserve a few pages for practising scientists to try and discuss the work they are currently doing from a Muslim perspective.

d. We need more focused (not necessarily smaller) conferences to discuss in detail particular issues that are debated widely but without much input from Muslims.

e. Beside the many essays we already have which associate modern scientific ideas and discoveries with the words of the Qur’an, we need studies that demonstrate a movement in the other direction, namely from the Qur’an to scientific knowledge. (The link between Qur’anic principles and injunctions and specific Muslim achievements in science and technology has been made in many books, but it has not been the central theme of any widely accessible study.)